NATIONAL LITERACY AND NUMERACY TESTS

Mr PISONI (Unley) (14:47): My question is to the Minister for Education. A primary schoolteacher has been removed from duty for altering her student's NAPLAN test at St Leonards Primary School. What safeguards does the government have in place to ensure that an incident like this does not happen again, and can the minister guarantee students and parents that this has not happened previously with other tests?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Minister for Education, Minister for Early Childhood Development) (14:48): Of course, it is a very disappointing thing to find out that this has happened in one of our schools. It is a gross breach of professional responsibility. I do not think there is any teacher in the state who would regard the altering of answers to a test as something that would be anything other than a gross dereliction of their professional responsibilities. Of course, we took immediate steps as soon as we became aware of this, and it is worth pointing out how we became aware of this. Another teacher observed what she thought was someone altering a test result. She immediately reported that to the principal, and the principal immediately put in place steps to investigate it.

The Hon. P.F. Conlon interjecting:

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL: Exactly, because most teachers understand that this is a matter of deep professional responsibility. They immediately recognised what they saw as a dereliction of duty, so a report was made and an investigation was carried out. I understand an admission was made and, of course, we immediately stood down the teacher.

Our thoughts now turn to the students. The first thing we will do is ensure that the students are offered a retest, once we have found out the scope of this particular issue. We understand it was a spelling test. There are five tests, and it may have affected one of the phases of the tests. They are year 7 students. There is a retesting option available in circumstances where that is necessary. Of course, it is a different set of questions. That will be made on offer to the students next week. A note is going home tonight for all parents of the school so that they can be told about the incident, and particularly the parents of the students in the year 7 class who are directly affected. Advice will be sought for them to consent to the new test.

Of course, the question arises about this teacher who has been stood down. The teacher will now face the disciplinary process; and in my view the strongest disciplinary action should be taken against a teacher who has displayed this level of dereliction of their professional responsibilities, but that is a process that has to take its course from this point onwards.

With respect to the general proposition, what I say is that I have confidence that the overwhelming majority of our teachers do understand their professional responsibilities and would be horrified by the fact that one of their colleagues would behave in this way. That is the confidence I have that this is not widespread. We know, of course, that the NAPLAN tests have been administered on two separate occasions—so, two previous years. We have never heard of an instance of this sort, so I do have confidence that this is not widespread.

Of course, to the extent that anyone is in any doubt that this government takes this matter seriously, they need to be aware that we will be taking the strongest possible action to uphold the standards and integrity of the test and also the professional standards of the profession.